A Saratoga Springs native who has worked closely with the judge would agree. For the past year, Michael Oswalt has been a clerk for the judge in New York City.

"I think all of her clerks found her to be a wonderful person and a great boss," his father, Mac Oswalt, said from his Saratoga Springs home Tuesday evening. "She really takes the clerks under her wing and treats them like human beings."

Sotomayor, 54, would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the court and the third in its history. She would replace liberal Justice David Souter, thereby maintaining the court's ideological divide. A number of important cases have been divided by 5-4 majorities, with conservative- and liberal-leaning justices split 4-4 and Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the decisive vote.

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In one of her most notable decisions as an appellate judge, she sided last year with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters. The city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. Coincidentally, that case is now before the Supreme Court.

Michael Oswalt has come to know Sotomayor, but he told The Saratogian Tuesday evening that he had been instructed to refer all media to the White House press office.

Early Tuesday morning he called his parents, Mac, a Skidmore psychology professor, and Dorothy, a nurse at Four Winds Saratoga. It was his 31st birthday, but that wasn't on his mind. "He said you might want to be watching television between 9 and 11," his father said. "I sort of guessed what it was."

The Oswalts watched the announcement on TV, and saw their son clapping in the background.

Michael Oswalt began the one-year clerkship after graduating last May from Duke University with degrees in law and divinity.

"He's kind of blessed, like Sonia," his father said. "He had wonderful people at Duke. He feels very lucky with the kind of people he's met along the way."

Michael Oswalt went to Lake Avenue Elementary School and graduated in 1996 from Saratoga Springs High School, where he was a member of the Choraliers. After graduating from Haverford College he worked for three years as a legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich before going to Duke.

His sister, Sarah Oswalt, lives in Saratoga Springs and his brother, Mark, is a carrier pilot in the Navy.

When Oswalt's clerkship finishes at the end of July, he will begin a two-year fellowship with a labor union. He won't be too far from his current boss if her nomination is successful: they would both be relocating to D.C.

Lifelong Saratoga Springs neighbor John Irving described Michael Oswalt as "a solid kid." But, he added, "I don't know how he can work for her." The problem? "He's a big Red Sox fan," Irving said. Sotomayor, from the Bronx, roots for the Yankees.

In one of her most memorable rulings as federal district judge, in 1995, Sotomayor ruled with Major League Baseball players over owners in a labor strike that had led to the cancellation of the World Series. "Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball," Obama said.

She became a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992, then an appeals judge in 1998 for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers New York, Vermont and Connecticut.

Obama chose her over three other finalists: federal appellate judge Diane Wood, Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Obama interviewed all of them, too, last week. He decided on Sotomayor at about 8 p.m. Monday and telephoned her with the good news.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama never questioned Sotomayor specifically about abortion, often a flashpoint topic for court nominees.